Fahamu Bulletin Archive

Donate to Pambazuka News!

Follow Us

Pambazuka News is produced by a pan-African community of some 2,600 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators who together produce insightful, sharp and thoughtful analyses and make it one of the largest and most innovative and influential web forums for social justice in Africa.

Latest titles from Pambazuka Press

African Sexualities

A ReaderSylvia Tamale
A groundbreaking book, accessible but scholarly, by African activists. It uses research, life stories and artistic expression to examine dominant and deviant sexualities, and investigate the intersections between sex, power, masculinities and femininitiesBuy now

Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya

Horace Campbell
In this elegantly written and incisive account, scholar Horace Campbell investigates the political and economic crises of the early twenty-first century through the prism of NATO's intervention in Libya.Buy now

Queer African Reader

Edited by Sokari Ekine, Hakima Abbas A diverse collection of writing from across the continent exploring African LGBTI liberation: identity, tactics for activism, international solidarity, homophobia and global politics, religion and culture, and intersections with social justice movements.
A richness of voices, a multiplicity of discourses, a quiverful of arguments. African queers writing for each other, theorising ourselves, making our ...more
Buy now

China and Angola

A Marriage of Convenience?Edited by Marcus Power, Ana Alves
This book focuses on the increased co-operation between Angola and China and shows that although relations with China might have bolstered regime stability and boosted the international standing of the Angolan government, China is not regarded as a long term strategic partner.Buy now

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Walter Rodney
Rodney shows how the imperial countries of Europe, and subsequently the US, bear major responsibility for impoverishing Africa. They have been joined in this exploitation by agents or unwitting accomplices both in the North and in Africa.Buy now

Emerging Powers Digest: 14th Edition, 5 December 2014

In today’s newsletter the Emerging Powers project announces a call for grant applications; gives a summary of Zuma's travels to China and the signing of the 5-10 Year Framework on Cooperation between the two countries; highlights Ethiopia's budding textile industry and relations with China; India's growing investment presence in Africa; militarization of the continent by the emerging actors. The news digest also provides analyses and news reports on China's evolving foreign policy and diplomatic relations. Read these and other news items in this week's edition of the Emerging Powers in Africa news digest.

Call for Grant Proposals

The Emerging Powers in Africa Project is issuing a call for grant proposals. The grants are aimed at examining the political, economic, social and cultural impact of the emerging powers footprint in Africa. The grant is specifically related to empowering civil society actors in gaining the appropriate knowledge and developing the necessary tools to articulate an informed perspective on the emerging powers in Africa and the corresponding impact.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki lost his temper and burst into anger when a journalist answered a phone call during an interview in the Qatari capital, Doha, a video aired by Al Arabiya showed. While Marzouki was speaking about corruption in an interview with a journalist, another journalist nearby answered a phone call, prompting the Tunisian president to burst in anger calling him 'shameless' and 'idiot'.

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, who attended the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Rasool discusses the Obama presidency, the militarization of Africa, Islamophobia, the Marikana massacre and his 2006 meeting with then-Senator Obama in South Africa.

The US government’s growing reliance on aerial drones to pursue its war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere is proving controversial. As governments are increasingly relying on drones, this Al Jazeera People and Power documentary asks what are the consequences for civil liberties and the future of war?

This Africa Today recording is of a special program highlighting the countries of Mali and Nubia and the efforts to prevent the destruction of Africa’s history. The guests include: Professor Manu Ampim, Dr. Runoko Rashidi, and Shayaam Shabaka.

The latest podcast by the Tax Justice Network is available: the edition contains news on celebrity tax avoidance, Greece’s missing billions, what should have been on the G20 agenda and trade mispricing – the tricks of the corruption trade.

Ben Cousins, co-author of 'Land, Power & Custom: Controversies generated by South Africa’s Communal Land Rights Act' and Research Chair at the Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at UWC, recently talked with Talk Radio 702 about the difficulties surrounding land distribution. He stated that the fair distribution of land was an enormously complex issue, but that there was no need to change the Constitution in order to distribute land. You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the link provided.

In this podcast, Africa Today interviews Nisrin Elamin and Natalina Malwal on history, political developments, and current affairs in the country of Sudan. Nisirin Elamin is a Sudanese educator and activist and Natalina Malwal is the President of the South Sudanese Community organization.

This is a short clip from the event 'No Economic Justice without Gender Justice: Building Inclusive Movements for Change', held at the AWID forum in Istanbul, April 2012, and organised as part of the BRIDGE Cutting Edge programme on gender and social movements. It discusses gender relations within social movements.

After killing a man in self-defense, Benson turned himself in to Malawi's police. More than two years later, he was still waiting for a court hearing, while his body showed the scars from the long wait in Lilongwe's main prison. The Open Society Justice Initiative is spearheading a Global Campaign for Pretrial Justice, documenting the costs of excessive and unnecessary pretrial detention. Watch Benson's story in the video accessible through the link provided.

In the latest of the Economic Justice Network's campaign to sensitize Ghanaians to why the Economic Partnership Agreements are bad for Ghana, here are two recordings of interviews that took place on EPAs. One discusses EPAs and Ghana's fuel subsidy and the other a 'face-off' with EU Ambassador to Ghana Claude Maerten.

The UN Web TV Channel is available 24 hours a day with selected live programming of United Nations meetings and events as well as with pre-recorded video features and documentaries on various global issues. Videos for the Rio+20 event are available from the site.

In this broadcast, Africa Today speaks with Dame Babou, Senegalese journalist and host of 'Africa Time' and Hamadou Tidiane Sy of Questaf.com on recent developments in West Africa - the coup in Mali and the Tuareg insurgency in Northern Mali.

The film Seeds of Freedom charts the story of seed from its roots at the heart of traditional, diversity rich farming systems across the world, to being transformed into a powerful commodity, used to monopolise the global food system.The film highlights the extent to which the industrial agricultural system, and genetically modified (GM) seeds in particular, has impacted on the enormous agro-biodiversity evolved by farmers and communities around the world, since the beginning of agriculture. You can watch a preview of the film through the URL provided.

In this broadcast from The Real News Network, Maurice Carney, a co-founder and Executive Director of the Friends of the Congo, talks about the expansion of AFRICOM on the African continent. 'Although the United States has continued to push AFRICOM, it has been roundly rejected by African leaders. An initial aim of AFRICOM was to establish a based presence on the African continent. And because of the, you know, vicious or, you know, intense pushback on the part of African leaders, President Bush had to backtrack on that aim. But nonetheless we still see the push for AFRICOM to have a large footprint on the African continent.'

The makers of this documentary are raising funds online: Born Again in the United States of Uganda is the story of how well financed US evangelicals, fundamentalists and neo conservatives conspired in the incitement of hatred against gays and how this led to the introduction of the ‘Kill the Gays’ bill to Uganda’s parliament. The documentary will explore how the US evangelical right invests heavily in financial and advocacy effort in influencing religious Africans to shun gay rights .

The TaxCast from the Tax Justice Network is a 15 minute podcast that follows the latest news relating to tax evasion, tax avoidance and the shadow banking system. In the latest podcast, tax haven insiders speak out, the co-founder of Facebook ‘unfriends’ the US, and Europe considers a Financial Transaction Tax.

The Raise Hope for Congo campaign has launched 'I Am Congo,' a new video series highlighting voices from the ground. The series profiles five inspiring Congolese individuals - Fidel Bafilemba, Amani Matabaro, Denise Siwatula, Petna Ndaliko, and Dominique Bikaba - who are making a difference in their communities.

There is still much poverty in Mozambique and president Armando Emilio Guebuza has twice had to deal with outbreaks of social unrest. Since the end of the 16-year civil war, the country has been ruled by his Frelimo party - the main opposition are their former enemies Renamo, led by Alfonso Dlkhama. The relationship between the two has become uneasy in recent times - Mr Dlkhama recently threatened to overthrow the government. In this BBC podcast, Guebuza in interviewed by Audrey Brown.

This special program of Africa Today is on the case of the Angola 3 - Herman Wallace, Alert Woodfox and Robert King. Woodfox and Wallace have served more than 14,500 days in solitary confinement in the Louisiana Prison System. A discussion on the issues of incarceration and solitary confinement with Robert King of the Angola 3, Marina Drummer of the Angola 3 Support Committee, Everette Thompson of Amnesty International and Professor Allen-Bell.

The Refugee Law Project, under its video advocacy programme, has produced documentaries to show the work being done at RLP, as well as highlight the plight of forced migrants in Uganda. The latest video on a page featuring their productions involves land evictions in Apaa.

In this audio recording from Chatham House, Pa'gan Amum, Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) Secretary General and Chief Negotiator of the Republic of South Sudan discusses the increased tensions between Sudan and South Sudan and gives his thoughts about how to solve the pressing issues of security, oil revenue sharing and border demarcation in order to prevent further deterioration in relations.

This hour-long video on the Ndifuna Ukwazi blog contains an interview with Doron Issacs from Equal Education. The video looks at the origins of the organisation. 'The Equal Education approach was to set up youth meetings to get young people to determine what issues were important and what hindered their performance at schools. These evolved into campaigns and activities geared to educating communities and parents on the education system, how to understand their rights and how to work with the education authorities to fix the problems that emerge.'